ic Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

[Supercape]

GM

 

Two shovels, two torches, and a pack of dunkin' donuts later...

 

"Here we go, finest resting place in Freedom City" said Groats, wiping a triple Creamychoc Delight from his mouth. 

 

The trip had taken only a few minutes. At this time of the dead of night, Sirens were not used. Besides, the Quarantine squad would arrive at any minute, and there was no point in antagonising them. 

 

It was a black, cloudy sky, casting the Graveyard into almost complete darkness, bar the torchlights. Even Jason Stack Houses infra red vision did not help much. Out here, everything was almost the same cold temperature. At least the Gravestones looked colder. The ground was a blur of moss, grass, and earth. 

 

"Be a devil to find anything around here...damn it, what a job...." muttered Groats, as he consulted the arrest notes on Ms Marigold. "Still, we found her by Master John Weaver Esq, Died 1872...From an inflamed glands, I see from our records" he said. "Damned if I know what inflamed glands are, but the mind does fill in the gaps, unfortunately" he said, massaging a sensitive area of the male body in sympathetic pain. 

 

"Lets go picking mushrooms then..." he grumbled. 

[Exaccus]

cursing the darkness and the rather pathetic torch he found himself unaided by ulysses tromped about the graveyard, trying to scan the weather worn words on the tombstones for this squire of theirs, having a few near misses putting his foot through the more modern and pitch black gravestones with such regularity it had made him break out in a nervous sweat, messing with tombstones was bad luck after all.

 

"any luck over your way chaps?" 

[caelcormac]

“That’s very kind of you officer.†Jason said in acceptance of Officer Groat’s help. He passed on the torch, he could see very well in the dark when he needed, but did grab himself a shovel before getting led to Officer Groat’s squad car and hopping in. “We should move quickly I think.â€

Once at the graveyard he stepped out of the car and looked around. Yes, this was definitely a graveyard but one lacking in roaming mycanoid beasts or large, obvious puddles of glowing chemicals. “I guess we should spit up and look around. But we should keep in each other’s sight, just in case.†Jason said turning towards a little hill with a gravestone at the top that had a somewhat shabby looking angel perched atop it. “I think I’ll head that way and keep an eye out for Mr. Weaver.â€

With that, Jason headed twards the angel, doing his best to check out the headstones along the way and only catching the occasional gravestone with his foot. His torch wasn’t very bright, and the stones were more or less the same temperature as the ground, so he kept missing them. He was thankful he’d finally given up wearing shoes most days, by the time he got to the top of the hill they’d have been scuffed to high hell anyway. Once there he used his light and gazed around seeing…well nothing much actually. Jason started to think that maybe he should wait and come back during the day. "Nothing over here." He called back.

[Supercape]

GM

 

It was cold, and it was dark. And gravestones, however steeled a heart is, are never good company. 

 

Apart from those crumbling relics, moss, and earth, little could be seen. An old boot. A few beer cans. A dead squirrel. 

 

Then, there was a noise. 

 

It was not loud, but it was disconcerting. Like a rolling, and oozing, a squelching. 

 

Then, Groats screamed in fear, and let loose his shotgun, before running in a blind panic towards Jason and Ulysses. 

 

"It's alive! It's alive!" he screamed. 

 

A half dozen tentacles of pure green ooze shot forth from the darkness, probing and stretching, seeking meat to feed on, like a parasite, like a fungus...

[Exaccus]

Surging forth before he could even think much about it; Ulysses stumbles over headstones and roots in the dark of the hill, weaving clunkly under the tentacles as he goes swinging at a foe he can barely see and missing the misshapen bulk of its core by a shameful margin

[caelcormac]

“Don’t touch it with your hands!†isn’t the most inspiring battlecry, but it was all Jason could think of as he watched Ulysses leap forward to engage the monster.

Jason was only a couple of steps behind, but not wanting to get tripped up on the tombstones he lept he lept into the air holding the shovel in one hand like a club, thankful he’d brought it so that he didn’t have to touch the thing with his hands. He remembered the nasty rash that Miss Marigold’s fungus gave him and was not looking forward to a repead performance.

Just as he landed, he swung the shovel around in an overhead chop, trying to use the blade of the shovel and sheer brute force to lop off a tentacle. But despite getting a solid hit and hearing a satisfying squish, when he pulled back the shove toward the myconid menace off with he could see he hadn’t succeeded in disarming the beast. He wondered if he should have brought more backup. Like the swat team. Or the Freedom League.

[Supercape]

The shovel sliced into the gelantinous tentacle, cutting it neatly. The appendage had a spongy, goo like quality, that was more resilient than it looked - but whilst its rubber like toughness was impressive, the mighty muscles of Jason Stack were more impressive, and the shovel bit deeply. The cut gave a little ooze of green sap, and the tentacle quivered and juddered in a spasm. 

 

The shovel itself splintered, and the wooden shaft came back with a green tinge, a sign of infection. Jason had been quite wise not to touch the thing. 

 

The dozens of flailing tentacles whipped this way and that, mindlessly, aimlessly. Whilst they had no direction, the sheer number of them made them hard to avoid, but Jason dodged this way and that, ducking and jumping the horrible fungus. 

[Exaccus]

Memories of red skin and irritation as well as slight disgust flooding back to his mind ulysses feels a little sheepish for falling back onto old reliable when its proven detrimental already, a little unfamiliar with what powers his unique station grants him he decides now is as good a time as any to see what the spirit of industry was offering in exchange for his services, taking an immense breath in he is as surprised as anyone else is when he exhales not the steam or force he is expecting but waves of air warping heat that boil the water from the grass and the misshapen mass of fungi covering the area in a thin mist of red hot steam that doesn't seem to have had any effect on the strange mass, but then where direct exposure failed maybe saturation will succeed.

[caelcormac]

As he dodge and swatted away tentacles, Jason saw Ulysses breathe out at the gooey mass and raised a skeptical eyebrow until he felt the wave of heat blast out from the man’s mouth. It didn’t seem to do much to slow down the tendrils beating down on him, but he was busy dodging so he was going to give his compatriot the benefit of the doubt and assume he knew what he was doing.

Between the last good whack and fending off the remaining tentacles, Jason could see that his shovel was not long for this world. That meant it was time for Plan B. Of course, he’d come here with barely any Plan A so he was going to need to come up with Plan B very quickly. A quick glance around the graveyard for something, anything that might help and he made up his mind. It wasn’t the greatest plan in the world, and likely he was going to have to pay the damages later but he didn’t see any alternative right now.

Jason plunged the shovel as hard as he could at the center mass of the thing but declined to pull it out, leaving it stuck inside the thing as he jumped away towards the biggest, solidest looking tombstone that he could see. He hope that leaving it stuck in there would distract the thing so that it’s flailing arms wouldn’t catch him as he leapt away toward what he’d decided on as Plan B. It was time to trade his stick for a nice, big, heavy rock. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best, and Jason hoped that today that was the case.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Boiling steam flumed into the dark knight, into the vague shape in the darkness. An ear piercing shrivelling shriek screamed through the air, and the tendrils shivered as the water seeped into its pores...whatever it was. 

 

And the torment was not over. Jasons Shovel split in half, the Stack muscles proving to much for mere wood. He was left holding a useless handle, whilst the giant mass of green goo oozed a clear, vaguely green liquid...

[Exaccus]

slightly disappointed that his attempt at stratigification hadn't worked all that well ulysses decides that punching it will suffice and without much thought beyond that makes to close the distance, swinging with a fist at first as once more his body outruns his mind he manages to hold back the blow and swing out with the shovel instead, grazing at the putrid fungal mass with the edge of the shovel, the wooden haft bending and bulging under the force of his impact.

[caelcormac]

Unburdened by his discarded (not to mention ruined) shovel, Jason turned to the task at hand: pulling up the giant tombstone to replace it. His weapon of choice was a tall pillar style tombstone with a sturdy looking celtic cross on top that belonged to Robert MacGleason (1898-1993 Snatched Away In The Prime Of Youth). Jason grabbed it in both hands and gave it a good yank, pulling it from the ground and leaving a nice hole that he hoped would make it easy to put back later.

Fresh weapon in hand, Jason charged back into the fray. He moved opposite Ulysses, waiting for the man to pull back from his viscous shovel hit before following up with a strike from the tombstone. He swung the stone over his head and slammed it down on top of the fungus creature, griding it in as he felt it squish in nice and deep. He watched as the tentacles gave their last wild spasms and the fell to the ground lifeless. He looked around, still holding the stone in place until he finally faced Ulysses and said, "Is it dead? Please tell me it's dead."

[Exaccus]

Ulysses winces as the tombstone is brought to bare like a cudgel on the squishy fungus creature, causing it to flatten and split along its mass, spraying its putrid fluids in lame jets that stain the grave dirt.

 

"if it isn't it probably wishes it was...sorta glad its a shroom now...there'd have been a nasty *hrk* Crunch otherwise..." Ulysses says in reply as he dusts his hands off, not so much because they were dirty as because the creatures foulness disgusted him to such a degree he was honestly on the verge of agreeing with the spirit of Industrial strength migrains about them needing to be addressed, but at the same time it was a living thing, simple as it was and not minding about something not sentient was uncomfortably close to not minding if it was not human.

 

"Might wanna put that back before someone notices its missing." he says with a slight shiver "Call me superstitious but its bad luck to mess with tombstones."

[caelcormac]

Jason lifted his weaponized tombstone off the squished monster. “You’re probably right, though I’m sure Mr…a-ha here it is MacGleason. I’m sure Mr MacGleason, if we asked him would agree that removing the horrible fungus monster from the graveyard was serving the greater good and would be more than happy to loan us his marker.†He said, confident he could lawyer his way out of deserving any bad consequences for disturbing the graves.

“Hey Grimes! Did you happen to see where it came from?†Jason shouted back in the general direction of where the officer ran to as he hauled the marker up on his shoulder and marched it back to put it in more or less the same place and condition where he’d found it. He’d lost track of the Officer Grimes in the melee and hoped that he still had a ride back to the station. He hated having to job. Not that it was slow, it was just that he always managed to step in something. Of course this time his feet were getting a nice coating of grave dirt on them, so he probably wouldn’t have much to worry about in that case.

Without waiting for an answer from the officer he walked back to the corpse and pulled out his flashlight, shining it around to see if he could spot any tracks or clues. “We should find out where this thing came from.†He said, more thinking aloud than anything, “Miss Marigold’s story is sounding more and more likely by the second. And whatever is being dumped is nastier than anything I’ve ever heard of. Now then, you don’t happen to see a bright green, glowing trail leading back to the dump site do you? That would really come in handy about now.â€